In the book,
Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill W.
described the core trait of alcoholics as self-centeredness—something he
referred to as “self-will run riot.” He
further described the alcoholic as “an actor who wants to run the whole show;
is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest
of the players in his own way.” The
reality that the vast majority of all people are self-centered can be a helpful realization in recovery.
This reality does not justify the
self-centeredness of addicts or taking this self-centeredness to an extreme, as
is the case with the self will run riot. However, it does help to explain why
so often individuals find themselves in collision with others. Whether it’s an extreme case of letting the
self go unchecked as happens in addiction or a less extreme case such as getting
impatient with the person in front of us at the checkout, driving aggressively
in traffic, avoiding personal responsibility, watching too much television or
becoming obsessive about our work or our workouts, self-centeredness creates
chaos in our lives. It’s a way of trying
to live life on our own terms, rather than living life on life’s terms.
Living life on our terms gets in the way of developing a
sense of self that is helpful because we are continually trying to
control. The Serenity Prayer speaks
wisdom to addicts and to non-addicts alike.
The prayer begins with learning to accept external circumstances that we
cannot change. (God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.)We
can spend a lot of unnecessary time and energy in attempting to change things
we cannot control. Once we recognize
what it is that we cannot control, the next part of the prayer moves us on to
another quality that we need to develop and that is courage. (Courage to change
the things I can.) It is during this part of recovery that we begin to
witness the integrity of an individual.
Now that the usual patterns of coping have been removed, something is
required to surface when going through difficult circumstances or when faced
with challenging times. Integrity hasn’t
had to stand up because acting out soothed the pain, or numbed the
discomfort. With those destructive
pathways removed, the self is required to show up, to stand up and to make a
decision about how to live life in this new way of being. Individuals will continue to move forward in
recovery when their discomfort with their present circumstances outweighs their
discomfort with growth. This requires us
to be intentional in our actions. Living
with intent is the essence of the Serenity Prayer (and the wisdom to know the difference.)
History gives us several good examples, where individuals put
in uncomfortable circumstances acted with intent and had a huge impact in their
world and in our world:
When Nelson Mandela was thrown in jail in 1962, he had almost
everything taken from him: his home, his reputation, his pride and, of course,
his freedom. He chose to use those 27 years in jail to focus on what was really
essential and to eliminate everything else, including his own resentment.
In Man’s Search for
Meaning, Victor Frankl concluded that everything can be taken from us
except “the last of human freedom’s—to choose one’s own attitude in any given
set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Frankl noted that the prisoners most likely to survive were those who
had a vivid sense of purpose in life. Even
in the humiliation of the camps, something that was certainly beyond the
prisoner’s control, they still found choices they did have.
Rosa Parks’ quiet, but resolute refusal to give up her seat
on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama coalesced into forces that propelled
the Civil Rights Movement and changed the course of history. As Parks’ recalls: “when the bus driver saw
me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up and I said ‘No’, I am
not.” Contrary to popular belief, her courageous “No” did not grow out of a
particularly assertive personality. Instead, her decision on the bus grew out
of a deep conviction about what deliberate decision she wanted to make in that
moment. When the bus driver ordered her
out of her seat she said: “I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on
a Winter night.” She did not know how
her decision would spark a movement that would reverberate around the world, but
she did know her own mind. She knew,
even as she was being arrested that it would be the very last time she would
ever ride in humiliation of this kind.
The discomfort of the present circumstances became more uncomfortable
than the arrest and incarceration that followed.
It may be unlikely that we will find ourselves in
circumstances like Nelson Mandela, Victor Frankl or Rosa Parks, yet we can use
their stories as inspiration for our own moments of courage. We can think of the strength of conviction
Rosa Parks exhibited, her courage to say no and to stand her ground. We can recognize that if Victor Frankl could
make choices in the desolation of a concentration camp, then we can start
making choices in our daily lives as well.
And as Nelson Mandela taught us, when we focus on what is really
essential in our lives, we often may find things we are clinging to like our
resentment, that also need to be eliminated.
Living with intent is hard.
It takes courage and wisdom. It
takes forethought and discipline. It
requires us to ask difficult questions and to examine our lives. Living with intent helps guide us to a
greater sense of purpose and help to chart our life’s path. We may not be able to run the whole show, but
by living with intent, we make deliberate choices about what we contribute to
the whole production.
